Tire Store Report -- Week 8

Well, the Commissioner’s Son & Heir did such a great job on The Grades this week, that we didn’t really have much to add.  However, loyal readers will know that has never stopped us before.  So instead of focusing just on that game, the bye week seems an appropriate time to take a look over the 2018 edition of the Crimson Tide and see what we think this team is. 

Sometimes we get so caught up in the 24-Hour Rule and anticipating the next opponent that we come to the bye week and realize the end of the regular season is close enough to touch.  It has been that way with this team.  Alabama has four games remaining in the regular season.  How can that be? Perhaps this is a good time to slow down, take a deep breath and look at the 2018 Crimson Tide as a whole.  

We tried to limit our thoughts to eight, consistent with the eight wins so far:

 

1.  Let us start with the most obvious thing in the world.  Our passing game is really, really good.  The guy with the funny, hard-to-spell name is very good at playing quarterback, y’all.  (We also  really really wish his parents would call him by his middle name Donny, but we are just happy he has a nickname because his first name is actually Tuanigamanuolepola.) How good?  He’s responsible for more first half touchdowns this season than the orange-you-can’t-sit-with team has scored so far.  Let that sink in for a minute.  The second string quarterback is pretty darn good, too -- and he has as much grace, class, courage, dignity, and loyalty as any football player we can think of.

2.  The receiving corps may not be getting quite their due.  These guys are catching easy ones and hard ones.  And after they catch them, they prove to be hard to run down.  Jerry Jeudy is within striking distance of a lot of single season records currently held by guys like Julio Jones, Calvin Ridley, and Amari Cooper.  Decent company for a sophomore.  The downfield blocking efforts are also tenacious, if not picture perfect.

3.  That new rule change that lets us throw the football to the tight end is proving to be a killer for other teams.  And the idea that we can throw to more than one tight end in a single game….  Well, what in the name of Don Hutson is going on here? Irv Smith, Jr. is playing his way up the NFL draft board.

4.  The defense was a worry coming into the year.  Many said that our defensive backfield would be very inexperienced and therefore vulnerable, our depth at linebacker was thinner than the sheets at the Moon Winx Motor Lodge, and our defensive linemen were good, except they had all gone to the NFL.  The idea was that we would have to rely on the offense to just outscore everyone.  Well, not so much.  The offensive accomplishments have tended to get all the glory (as usual) but this is a solid defensive team.  Even after losing Trevon Diggs, the defense is more than holding up its end and improving week over week.  Quinnen Williams spent about as much time in the Tennessee backfield as Jarrett Guarantano did.  Using the adjustments for quality of competition, disallowing late "garbage time" plays, etc. the Football Outsiders rate Alabama's defense as #14 against the rush and #5 against the pass.

5.  This team is relatively young, but has a lot of leadership at hand. Did you notice that Alabama was without key upperclass leadership on both sides of the ball Saturday? Neither Raekwon Davis nor Damien Harris started the game, each serving some disciplinary suspension.  You say you didn’t really notice? Yeah, that’s sort of the point.  The running back rotation from Josh Jacobs to Najee Harris was pretty seamless, as were the results.  LaBryan Ray filled in just fine for Davis.

 6.  If you like snake analogies (and to be honest we really haven’t since the day J.D. opened a hood and found a water moccasin from that creek that runs behind the store curled around the heater hose on an old Impala that had been left with us over night) for a few seasons people had been talking about Alabama teams as anacondas -- suffocating defense and ball-control offense.  They were constrictors that would just curl around you and slowly squeeze the very life out of you.  This year it was looking more like a cobra (the snake, not the nifty 64-65 Fords, though if anyone has one of those they are looking to unload, call us at the shop, but please do not speak to the comptroller about it) with a deadly quick strike capability that killed you before you knew what was happening.

If this team can stay relatively healthy from here on out, both things may come true.  For example, last Saturday Alabama scored 28 points in the first quarter on 21 offensive plays.  In contrast, Tennessee had net negative yardage for the first 14 minutes of the game.  When it decided to slow the game down and end it, Alabama held Tennessee to six offensive plays in fourth quarter and possessed the ball for nearly 10 minutes on one drive where they threw exactly one pass -- the fourth-string running back did the rest.  Cobra in the first quarter and anaconda in the fourth will win a lot of football games, y’all.

7.  This team can get better.  It still tends to incur far too many penalties.  We have dropped some passes that were going to make things extremely tough on the other team.  Our middle linebackers have improved significantly, especially over the last two games, but have a ways to go.  Their seems to be a little bit of let up in this team.  They get ahead by three or four touchdowns and decide that the other team isn’t really a threat.  That lack of focus might prove costly at some point -- we expect the coaches are working on it.  The running game has not always been as punishing as it might be -- some recent change on the offensive line may reflect that.  All that said, the idea that this team hasn’t yet reached its full potential should be cause for concern in other locker rooms.  Unlike some other teams, Alabama hasn’t had nail-biter wins against Texas A&M or Pitt or Vanderbilt or Memphis, much less outright losses to Maryland or been blown out by Purdue.

 

8.  Both Alabama and LSU control their own destiny.  LSU already has a conference loss, but beating Alabama a week from Saturday night would give it the tie-breaker over Alabama for the conference championship game, if LSU didn’t lose again.  But LSU still has to play Texas A&M on the road, while Alabama’s two remaining conference games are at home, in which they will probably be at least two touchdown favorites.  Regardless, the formula for both teams is simple -- win out and go to Atlanta.

10.  The Saban guy is a pretty good coach.  He was a late addition to the Coach of the Year watch list.  The fact that he doesn’t win it year over year is probably just an acknowledgement that the people sitting around the table to vote say something like “Well, ok, besides Nick Saban, who would you say?”  But the numbers are starting to pile up.  Considering only wins at the top level, Saban is rising through the ranks of very successful head coaches.  He passed Hayden Fry early this year and most recently passed Steve Spurrier on that list for 10^th place.  He has a very good chance to catch Bo Schembechler and Lou Holtz this season.  We expect he doesn’t care, but as you’d expect all of the other coaches we mentioned are in the College Football Hall of Fame.  Just saying.

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